Fair funding to achieve excellence and equity in education: consultation

This consultation seeks views on the Scottish Government’s future approach to school funding.
The consultation invites views on the way education is currently funded in Scotland, the purpose of developing a new, more consistent approach to school fundi

Foreword By The Deputy First Minister And Cabinet Secretary For
Education And Skills

Improving the education and life chances of our children and
young people is the defining mission of this Government. Our vision
for education is to close the unacceptable gap in attainment
between our most and least disadvantaged children and to raise
attainment for all.

I believe that decisions about a child's learning should be made
as close to that child as possible, and that decisions about a
child's needs and how to meet them should be made by those around
the child. This is a vision of empowerment and devolution -
devolution from local authorities to schools - to include teachers,
headteachers, parents and communities - and devolution from a
national to a local or a regional level.

The Government's plans for realising this vision are set out in
Education Governance: Next Steps - Empowering Our Teachers, Parents
and Communities to Deliver Excellence and Equity for Our Children,
published alongside this consultation. That paper sets out how we
will ensure that Scotland's education system allows children to
achieve their full potential, whatever their strengths and
background. However, we are clear that, in order to deliver this
transformational change, our education system must be underpinned
by fair and transparent funding that puts schools at the heart of
decision-making. The way we fund schools needs to recognise the
crucial role of the school and support the collaborative and
flexible culture we are seeking to develop.

Education represents the single largest component of local
authority spending, with 45% of local authority budgets directed
towards the provision and delivery of education, and gross
expenditure totalling around £5 billion per year.

In its 2014 report, School Education, the Accounts Commission
suggested that it is how local authorities decide to spend their
education budget, rather than the overall level of spending, which
has most impact on attainment levels. Importantly, that report also
concluded that the impact of funding on attainment could be more
significant if it was targeted at those schools and pupils where
the need to improve attainment was greatest.

How we fund education in Scotland has an important role to play
in helping to achieve our aims. Through this consultation, I want
to hear your views on how we can best use the resources we have
available to deliver the best possible outcomes for all our
children and young people.

John Swinney
MSPDeputy First Minister and
Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills